“I have met quite a few architects around the world over the years, and few appear to be dog lovers … Perhaps it’s because dogs are messy and chaotic creatures, while architects are generally tidy and ordered?
“Le Corbusier had a dog during his purist phase. It was called Pinceau, or “paintbrush” in English.
“When Pinceau died, [...]

Not content with inspiring Woody Allen’s best film while still in my mother’s womb, it has recently been brought to my attention that there now exists a remarkable shopping trolley chair bearing my name.
The Annie Chair, as can be seen below, takes the unlikely combo of utilitarianism and kitsch to absurdly delightful new heights with [...]

Willem Dafoe’s rubber pad is up for sale according to the celeb real-estate website The Real Estalker and rather nice it is too. If rubber is your thing that is.

It’s only rubber clad, so it’s not strictly a rubber house … that’d be silly. It’d wobble around far too much and smell like an inner tube. Not [...]

Bit of a domestic drama the other day. Keen to make the most of the recent sunshine, I’d rushed straight home from work to enjoy the last of the evening rays on the roof terrace.
My cat, a pampered puss who spends most of her time indoors – quite contentedly, I might add, being a Persian [...]

When April departs with its sweet showers and the sun once more shines through, then folk longingly look towards the festival season.
They dream of blissful days lounging in tents under an azure sky with the thump thump thump of a distant sound system calling them to wave their arms in the air (like they just [...]

Recently I wrote about the ultimate in avian accessories, a Richard Meier inspired birdhouse, the apogee of modern living for birds.
Or so I thought.
Apparently that’s just not good enough for our feathered friends.
“Inspired?” choked my friend Sid the sparrow as we shared a seedcake the other day, “Inspired?!? That’s not flappin’ good enough! I spent [...]

Love-them-or-hate them design duo, Colin and Justin, made a fleeting appearance on lunchtime tv the other day.
You can always rely on the marmite couple for a cutting but quotable comment and true to form, they didn’t disappoint.
The object of their mockery on this occasion was fellow self-proclaimed interiors expert, Ann Maurice, presenter of the House [...]

No, I’m not talking about John Belushi in a toga. Instead I’ve got pictures of hedgehog houses, bat belfries and ladybird towers dancing before my eyes.
Relax, dear reader, I haven’t eaten magic mushrooms and ended up in a psychedelic Beatrix Potter world.
All the above abodes are available to the great British gardener to encourage wildlife [...]